


Clean It Up

by thegeekgene



Series: Wash It Out [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeekgene/pseuds/thegeekgene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat and Tavros work on their individual problems and Aradia gives Karkat a friendly warning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clean It Up

“I went down to res life, yesterday,” Karkat says, after their date on Saturday. Or during, maybe. After the movie, anyway, when they’re in Tavros’s room, lying on his bed, Karkat tucked into Tavros’s side. They’ve been kissing and then talking about the movie and the change of subject throws Tavros a bit.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay?”

Karkat sounds grim and serious, like a trip to res life is a trip to the gallows.

“How did that go?”

“Fine,” he says, then snorts. “You have no idea why that’s significant, do you?”

“Uh. Not really?”

Karkat bites him through his shirt and Tavros squirms.

“I’ll make this simple for you,” he says. “I went to get a new room assignment. I’m moving out of my room with Gamzee.”

“Oh,” Tavros says. “Oh!”

“Yeah, oh.”

Tavros tightens his arm around Karkat’s shoulders.

“Have you -- uh -- Have you. . .?” He trails off.

“Dumped his ass?” Karkat suggests. “No, I’m waiting until I have a new room to move into. I figure it’ll be less hellaciously awkward that way.”

“Did they say when it’ll be?” He begins petting Karkat’s hair.

“Soon. Enough people are abroad this semester there are a few empty singles. I’ll probably end up in a freshman dorm, though.”

“Oh.” Tavros pauses, then buries his fingers in Karkat’s hair. He’s clinging a little but can’t really help it. “That’ll be okay. I lived in a single in, uh, Tarvek, last year. It was small but, uh, not bad.”

“I just don’t want to have to put up with idiot freshmen. Maybe I’ll get lucky and something here will open up.”

‘Here’ is Questant Hall, one of the three main upperclassman dorms. Tavros has a single on the second floor, east-facing, so he gets lots of natural light during the day. It’s a nice room, all hardwood and at least as big as his bedroom at home. The thought of Karkat living so close make his heart flip over.

“Maybe,” he says. “I know that a few people, aren’t around this semester. Like, uh, Nepeta is in South America, somewhere, so her room might be open.”

“Nepeta, jesus,” Karkat says. “She would flip her shit if she found out I was sleeping in her room.”

“Oh, uh, you know Nepeta?”

“She had a terrible and ill-advised flush crush on me, last year. For all I know she still does. Are you friends with her?”

Tavros is suddenly very uncomfortable.

“Actually,” he says, “yes. We, uh, we hang out a lot. When she’s, in the country.”

Some of his tension must be evident because Karkat lifts his head to look at him.

“What?” Tavros says.

Karkat stares at him a moment longer then asks, “Is this going to be a thing for you?”

“Uh. What do you mean?”

“Don’t pretend to be dumber than you are. It’s pathetic, but not in a way that inspires me to ride your bulge.”

Tavros wheezes, choking on air, and Karkat snorts then sits up. Tavros has to do the same and, when he recovers himself, Karkat is crosslegged at the foot of his bed, watching him.

“Uh, sorry,” he says.

“Are you done flipping out, now? Shit, I should have known you were a delicate fucking flower.”

“It’s not that,” Tavros says. “I was just, uh, surprised.”

“Well, don’t give yourself a heart attack.” Karkat considers him a moment longer. “Look, Nepeta’s never struck me as the jealous type. I seriously doubt she’s going to stop being friends with you because you’re dating her crush, assuming she still even has a crush on me. That would be spectacularly out of character for someone as laid back as her.”

Tavros nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re right. Nepeta wouldn’t do that. He smiles. “She’s more likely to hang out with me more and, uh, pump me for details.”

“Which you _will not_ give her.”

Tavros mimes zipping his lips but he’s still smiling.

“Fucking right,” Karkat says. “If I find out you have given her even the tiniest hint of ammunition to use on her godforsaken shipping blog, I will run your bulge through a cheese grater and piss on the remains.”

“But then you can’t, uh, ride it,” Tavros says.

For a moment it looks like Karkat might hit him and Tavros prepares himself to pin him. (All those Troll jit su lessons, to say nothing of wrestling with Aradia, have prepared him well.) He wonders if Karkat is ticklish. Then Karkat subsides and says, “There’s your spine. Nice to see it’s back.”

Tavros frowns but Karkat doesn’t know about his accident. There’s no reason to bring it up.

“So why are you bothered by Nepeta but not Gamzee?” Karkat asks.

“Hm?” Tavros is still shaking off negative associations. “Oh,” he says. “You mean, why does dating someone my friend had a crush on bother me, but, dating someone whose, uh, moirail, had a crush on me, doesn’t?”

“That is the question, yes. Good job restating.”

Tavros tilts his head to one side as he considers.

“I guess,” he says, slowly, “because I have low self-esteem?”

Karkat snorts, then waves at him to go on.

“What I mean is,” he says, “I am imagine Nepeta, or someone, as you said, not as laid-back as Nepeta, being upset you are dating someone, because you are great. I don’t think the same of myself, though, so it’s harder to imagine Gamzee, or, uh, anyone else, being upset I’m dating someone.” He pauses. “This is a thing I have been working on. With Aradia and Sollux, I mean. And I have gotten, uh, a lot better. I never would have kissed you two years ago.”

“Or snapped back at me,” Karkat deduces. “I’m going to save us both some embarrassment and not mention you calling me great, except to say don’t do it again.”

Tavros grins a little.

“What if I call you pretty?” he asks.

Some color rises in Karkat’s cheeks. It’s red, definitely red, but different from Aradia’s red. Brighter, maybe.

“Don’t do that, either,” he says.

Tavros sits up on his knees and leans closer.

“But I want to,” he says. “You are.”

“Shut the fuck up, I am now. I’m manly as hell.”

“I don’t that those two things are, uh, mutually exclusive.” Tavros pauses. “Unless you subscribe to bullshit, out-dated Earth gender norms, which are bullshit and out-dated.”

“Okay,” Karkat says. “Congratulations. You ruined it. You had a pretty decent line going there, but then your inner women’s studies major came out and wrecked it. Good job.”

“I’m a biology major.”

“Have you taken any women’s studies classes?”

“Two. Actually.”

“And my point is made.” Karkat gestures broadly as he speaks. It’s kind of charming.

“You’re still pretty,” Tavros says.

“Ugh.” Karkat digs a fist into his forehead. “Stop saying that.”

“I won’t. And you’re blushing,” Tavros adds, because he totally is. “That’s pretty, too.”

“Why the fuck am I dating you?” Karkat asks.

Tavros decides to let it go. He kind of wants to make out some more and getting Karkat into a rage probably won’t be conducive to that goal.

“Have you decided what you’re going to say to Gamzee?” he asks. “When you move out?”

“I know what you meant,” Karkat says. “And, no, I haven’t. A simple ‘goodbye, we’re over’ would be ideal but since I’m constitutionally infuckingcapable of keeping my mouth shut I doubt that’s what’s going to happen.”

“You aren’t going to tell him why?”

“He should know why. He was there. And I don’t owe him shit.”

“No, I know that,” Tavros says. “I was thinking of it more as something you might want to do for yourself. Clear the air, sort of. Give him the chance to respond.”

“If you’re suggesting I should ask him to try to get me back -- ”

“Not at all. It’s just, uh, you like knowing things. About people. It’ll drive you crazy if you don’t at least try to get an explanation out of him.”

Karkat stares at him.

“We’ve been talking for like four days and your spooky mind powers only work on dogs,” he says. “How the fuck do you know that?”

Tavros grins, embarrassed.

“I have a little advantage,” he says, “in that I feel the same way about people. And when you said you had a conciliation problem -- it’s not all that hard to work out.”

Karkat is looking at him strangely. Tavros waits several seconds before he says, “What?”

“Just making sure I still want to chew on your neck,” he says. “It kind of feels like we’re flipping pale in here.”

“Oh, no,” Tavros says. “I don’t want that.”

“Then I better chew on your neck. Come here.”

 

Tavros goes to class with hickeys on Monday; more than hickeys, with bruises. When Karkat said ‘chew on your neck’ he really meant it. The blotches of discolored skin are ugly and obvious and he feels kind of smug looking at them in the mirror. Smug and mortified, it turns out, are not mutually exclusive, anymore than pretty and manly.

It wouldn’t be a problem, except his first class is history, and Eridan is there.

“So you finally scored some action,” Eridan says, leaning over Tavros’s desk in what’s come to be a pre-class ritual. Tavros has cultivated the habit of not arriving until Dr. Harley is actually in the room, but he was distracted, this morning. “That’s a surprise,” Eridan continues. “Wouldn’t’ve thought anyone on this shithold campus would lower themselves to lay hand on your nasty ass.”

Tavros focuses very hard on his textbook. He had some trouble focusing on the reading he did over the weekend.

“‘Less it was that other gutterblood you’re always palling around with,” Eridan continues. “That’s the only troll I can think of lower than you. You should tell her to keep her fangs to herself. Your market value is low enough, already, without her filth -- ”

Aradia’s voice is in his head, telling him not to be taken in, that responding will only encourage him. Karkat’s voice, piping up for the first time, is spewing invective and the Sollux that usually lets Aradia do the talking is shedding sparks.

Tavros says, “Shut the fuck up.”

Eridan stops. Tavros lifts his head, glares up at him and, after a moment, Eridan’s look of shock turns into a victorious, malicious grin.

“The fuck did you say to me, shitblood?”

Tavros sits up straighter.

“I said, shut the fuck up about my moirail. She’s higher than you on every level and I won’t let you disrespect her.”

Eridan leans back on the desk beside Tavros’s, prompting a glare from the troll occupying it, and shows all his teeth.

“Oh, yeah?” he says. “You’re not gonna let me? And just how’d’ya think you’re gonna stop me?”

Tavros hadn’t actually thought that far ahead but Karkat’s voice comes to him, again; a memory, this time.

“I’m going to file a harassment complaint,” he says. “You’ve been doing nothing but pestering me all semester, and I’m sick of it. I’m going to report you to Dr. Harley and, if he doesn’t do anything about it, I’ll go to the conduct commission. You’ve done this to enough people I doubt I’ll have much trouble finding corroborating evidence.”

Eridan is staring at him, open-mouthed. As are a few other classmates. More than a few, really. Tavros isn’t sure when, exactly, he stood up, or when he started yelling, but both those things have apparently happened. He feels himself beginning to wilt under scrutiny but the remembered voices in his head urge him on.

“Now shut up about Aradia,” he says, and sits back down.

There’s a moment of silence before the troll to Tavros’s left -- the one whose desk Eridan has taken over -- starts laughing. Eridan rounds on her, fury in his face and snaps, “The fuck are you laughin’ at, gutterblood?”

The troll keeps laughing. Several other students have joined in.

“You,” she says. “And don’t even think about starting in on me, now. I’ve got a kismesis and he might be an obnoxious waste of horn, but he’s still twice the troll you are.”

“Wh -- Why -- You -- ” Eridan is sputtering and more people are laughing.

Someone pats Tavros on the back and, when he looks around, it’s a blonde girl he’s seen hanging around the Strider in the pointy sunglasses.

“Good job,” she says.

“Oh,” Tavros says. “Thanks.”

“If you want some backup when you go to Harley, hit me up,” she says. “I’ve been here all semester.”

“Thanks,” Tavros says, again, and feels his cheeks flare.

 

Dr. Harley happens to be free after class and Tavros accompanies him back to his office. The blonde girl (“Call me Roxy!”) tags along. Harley is sympathetic to the complaint.

“I had the idea something was amiss with that boy,” he says. “You should hear the complains Rosa had about him, last year. Thanks you for letting me know, children, I’ll have a talk with him and, if you have any more problems, you know where to find me.”

Tavros leaves the meeting hopeful and pleased with himself. Roxy watches his bouncing step with amusement.

“Chill out, hotshot,” she says. “I get you’re excited but the element of surprise is totes key when you’re dealing with divas like fishface. You run around with your panties all aflame, he’ll figure out something’s up.”

“I did, uh, tell him I was going to report him,” Tavros says, but makes an effort to walk more normally. “So he should, logically, know something is up.”

“Pf,” she says. “You think that guy runs on logic? He prob’ly thinks you were bluffing to flirt back.”

That thought hadn’t occurred to Tavros and puts a damper on his excitement.

“Oh,” he says. “Uh-oh. What if he thinks me going to Dr. Harley was, too?”

“Nah. Dragging in somebody else reads totes ashen and I don’t think that’s what he’s looking for.”

They’re approaching the dining hall and the mention of ashen makes Tavros think of Karkat, again. He looks around but doesn’t see him.

“I sure hope not,” he says. “I don’t want Eridan in, uh, any of my quadrants.”

“Neither does anyone else,” Roxy says.

Tavros glances over at her as they ascend to the door of the dining hall.

“You seem pretty knowledgeable about, uh, quadrants,” he says. “Can I ask how, uh. . .”

He trails off, realizing how potentially personal a question this is and says, “Sorry,” instead.

“It is totes cool,” says Roxy. “When me and DiStri were in high school, there were only, like, five other humans and they were losers. Wacky troll shit rubs off on you, after a while. We ended up moirails and he’s even got a kismesis.”

“Oh, really? Wow.” They swipe their ID cards and come to a stop by the entrance to the food lines. “I guess that makes him, a better troll than me. I’ve never had one. Or even, uh, wanted one, really.”

“So those gnaw marks on your neck?” Roxy asks.

Tavros puts a hand to them and smiles.

“Flushed,” he says.

“Cool,” she says. “Congrats. Okay, I’m gonna get my grub on. My posse’s at that back table, if you wanna join up. No pressure.” She points to a table with three other humans, including Strider, and walks off without waiting for a response.

Tavros reminded, of his own empty stomach -- he never wakes up early enough for breakfast -- is about to follow her to the food lines when a hand grabs his shoulder from behind.

“What the fuck was that?” Karkat demands, before Tavros can turn around. “That was one of Strider’s groupies, wasn’t it? What was she doing to you?”

“Uh, nothing?” Tavros says, looking over his shoulder at him. “I mean, other than talking to me?”

“What the fuck were you talking to her about?”

Tavros shakes off his hand and turns to face him.

“Eridan, mostly,” he says, and tells Karkat about his morning’s adventure.

“Dr. Harley apparently heard about Eridan,” he says, finishing up. “From, uh, Dolorosa, so he believed me. So I didn’t really need Roxy but it was nice of her to come, I think.”

“That is pretty decent of her,” Karkat agrees. “I wouldn’t have thought anyone who associates with that cretin capable of legitimate kind gestures.” He starts for the food lines, Tavros at his side.

“She’s really nice,” Tavros says. “Did you know she’s, uh, Strider’s moirail? I mean, I think that’s what she meant, she has a nickname for him, it’s cute. And he’s not so bad, either. He helped me a lot, when we did slam poetry, even if he was weirdly preoccupied with, uh, puppets.”

“Stop defending him,” Karkat says. “This isn’t a courtroom and you’re not getting paid. And I already said it was decent of her, what more do you want?”

Tempted though he is by Roxy’s invitation, Tavros sits with Karkat to eat, at a square table with two other chairs. Sollux and Aradia usually join him for lunch on Mondays but there’s no sign of them yet.

“So what did Eridan say that finally got to you?” Karkat asks.

Tavros flushes a little at the memory.

“Oh,” he says. “It was actually, uh, about these.” He gestures to his neck, then rushes on before Karkat can comment. “He thought, uh, Aradia did it, and said some really not-nice stuff about her and I kind of, uh, snapped?”

Karkat snorts.

“Typical. You spend all this time listening to him trash you and no reaction. The second he goes after your friends, it’s a knife to the jugular.”

“Oh, no,” Tavros says. “I wouldn’t do that. He might, uh, enjoy it.”

Karkat is swallowing a bite of sandwich and chokes so hard he ends up coughing it up.

“Gross,” Tavros says, as he continues to cough. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Karkat gasps. “I’m fine, fuck.” He takes a frantic swig of cranberry juice and the coughing subsides. “I keep forgetting you have a sense of humor.”

“That’s a dangerous move, KK,” Sollux says, making them both jump. A plate of food and a cup of soda, levitated by red and blue spark, settle onto the table at Karkat’s side. Sollux doesn’t sit, yet, but eyes the mess on Karkat’s plate. “Gross,” he says. “What’s that?”

Karkat grabs a napkin and begins cleaning up his chewed sandwich.

“Your moirail,” he says, “surprised me with a reference to Eridan’s obvious sadomasochism. He’s a menace. I almost choked to death.”

“You were making noises,” Tavros says, “so you were fine. Real choking is a lot, uh, quieter than that.”

“Thank you, Dr. Nitram. Is there anything else I need to know?”

Tavros considers as Sollux sits down.

“I could tell you about how grease fire injuries are treated,” he says, “but we’re eating.”

“How do you know this?” Karkat asks, horrified.

“My ex-girlfriend is an EMT. She tells me lots of things.”

“She really does,” says Aradia, sliding into the seat next to him. “It’s fascinating.”

“Disgusting, you mean,” Sollux says. “Don’t let him tell you, KK, you’ll never sleep again.”

“I’m not a giant wussy baby like you, Captor,” Karkat says. “It’ll take more than some body horror medical horseshit to disrupt my sleep cycles.”

“Does that mean you do, uh, want to hear about it?” Tavros asks.

They look at each other for a moment, Karkat glaring while Tavros smiles his most innocent smile. Karkat turns back to his food first.

“Maybe later,” he says.

“Who’s a giant wussy baby?” Sollux says, then curses and turns a wounded expression on Aradia. “What was that for?”

“Derailing,” she says. “You know we’ve got more important things to do than listen to your spat.”

“Did you have to kick me that hard?”

“Have Feferi kiss it better,” she says. “Now, Karkat, we have something important to discuss with you, now that you’re dating Tavros.”

Karkat looks at her warily.

“What, does he have an STD or something?”

“No!” Tavros says.

“No,” Aradia agrees. “Tavros is very safe. “I trust you will be, too.”

“Oh my god!” Tavros buries his face in his hands. “Do I have to be here for this?”

“Yes,” Karkat and Aradia say as one.

Karkat adds, “Like hell are you leaving me alone with them.”

“This is your business, too, Tavros,” Aradia says. She turns back to Karkat. “Now, what do you know about redbloods?”

“If this is about your spooky ghost powers, we’ve been over it,” Karkat says, gesturing between Tavros and himself. “Sollux can kill me with my own computer, or his brain if I do something really dumb. You can double kill me with your brain.”

“Oh, good,” Aradia says, beaming. “Then you already have a strong background on the subject. Let me fill in the details.”

“I’m leaving, now,” Tavros says.

Aradia grabs his wrist and doesn’t let go.

“Now, now,” she says. “You wouldn’t want to miss the best part.”

 

A half hour later, sitting on the stairs outside the dining hall, Tavros looks at Karkat and says, “I’m really sorry.”

“No, it’s good,” Karkat says. His eyes are a little too wide, his voice a creak. “It’s fine. I’m glad you have such devoted moirails on your side. Makes me feel better; if I fuck up, I’ll definitely have my due punishment. And you were right, by the way.”

“Hm?”

“Aradia is much, much scarier.”

**Author's Note:**

> Podfic can be found here: http://tindeck.com/listen/khnnr


End file.
